


Hang The DJ

by Wintervention



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1960s, F/F, F/M, Illegal Activities, M/M, Multi, Music, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Racism, Religion, Religious Conflict, Soviet Union, USSR, pirate radio
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-06-27 02:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wintervention/pseuds/Wintervention
Summary: After leaving a life at the Vaganova Academy with a petulant flounce, disgraced dancer Viktor Nikiforov becomes the poster boy of 'Radio Riot', a pirate radio station run from an attic room above an ice rink- and in doing so, becomes on of the biggest providers of western music to the population of Leningrad, along with his ragtag group of associates.However, when he has reason to believe that the secrecy of their location has been compromised, he is forced to move thousands of rubles worth of contraband equipment and records across the city- risking the lives of his friends and family in the process."No language, just sound, that's all we need know,to synchronise love to the beat of the show-And we could dance"





	1. Emil

 

Sara was the one to teach him how to pray.

 

Of course, Emil had vague memories of his Great-Grandmother with her hands clasped, on her knees in front of a crudely painted icon, with the lace covering from the lounge’s side table draped over her head- but as a five year old he had much less of a worldly knowledge than his younger self would have liked to admit, and he’d never thought to ask what she’d been doing. Although, it was unlikely she would have graced him with an answer. He couldn’t remember the woman having much patience for his energy, and even then he’d had some understanding of the fact that her frantic whispering in an unfamiliar language was far more important to her than his desire for a biscuit at the time.

When he asked his grandmother following the funeral of his Great-Grandmother a little over three years later, she’d told him that she’d gone ill in the head with her age. When he asked his mother, she’d cast him aside as though she didn’t know what he was talking about. Maybe she really didn’t- he hasn’t spoken of it much since.

So when he sees the same painting hung on the kitchenette wall of his upstairs neighbour, he leaps at the opportunity to finally get an answer. The neighbour’s son, Michele, is reluctant to give him one. On the contrary, his twin sister is far more enthusiastic.

He doesn’t understand the point of praying, not at first. Emil’s a man of logic, or so he likes to think, and the thought of there being something listening to him, some sort of higher being, is a concept he struggles with.

However, sat in a cramped, damp, windowless room on the border between Poland and the Soviet Union, he can’t seem to think of a more worthy place to test its effectiveness.

 

A strip of fluorescent lightbulbs hangs over his head. It’s still swinging from where the door slammed shut behind him as he was thrown in to the room, tripping over the peeling linoleum in the door’s frame. His shadow sways beneath him, and catching it in the corner of his eyes every few seconds is beginning to give him a headache. He doesn’t know how many seconds it has been, there’s no clock. It could be the evening, for all he knows, and his parents are happily off back to Russia without him. Or maybe they’re in the room next door, both twice as anxious as he is.

The table is low to the ground and secured to the floor, the chair also screwed down and pushed just a little too close to the only other piece of furniture. It forces him in to an odd and uncomfortable position, back curled up to fold under the table’s edge, and legs stretched out to avoid pressing his knees up under it. The metal is cold under his clenched, white hands.

_‘You just need to talk, and he’ll listen. It doesn’t even have to be out loud,'_

The sound of his own blood flowing through his head is all he can focus on, and it terrifies him. He’s not the only person in the room, there are two fresh-faced guards stood behind him, and not even their breathing makes a single slip of noise. If he hadn’t seen them follow him in, he wouldn’t be entirely convinced that they were ever there at all, and he has yet to hear the heavy door fall shut and signify their exit.

He doesn’t need to.

 

Soon enough the crack of two inch thick solid wood against plaster and brick fills the room, bounding off the walls and striking him directly in his pounding heart.

A new border guard looms over behind him, easily over seven foot tall and built like an ox. Emil can feel hot breaths on the back of his neck. He steps in to view with sure and heavy footsteps, wraps thick, calloused fingers around the chair opposite, smiles with bared, yellowing teeth and a vitriolic gaze. He wears the sickly-shaded green of the border patrol uniform as though he was born in to it.

“Do you mind if I take a look at your identification, comrade?” he asks.

They’ve looked at his papers plenty of times already, and they perfectly well know who he is, but he still digs in to the pocket of his coat with trembling fingers to retrieve his crumpled passport, visa and student card, placing them gently on the table. They sit out almost mockingly, next to the pile of cardboard sheathed vinyl records the patrol had found in his suitcase, before the guard snatches them up almost violently and pretends to study them for mere seconds.

“Emil Nekola. That’s not a particularly local name. Where are you from, Emil Nekola?”

“Czechoslovakia, sir,” he swallows.

The man huffs in amusement, eyes flitting between the two others stood by the door, who chuckle nervously- no doubt to placate him.

“Now, there’s no need for this ‘sir’ business, we’re all comrades here- no?”

“What reason do you have to be in Russia- that is where you’re heading, correct?” he continues.

Emil nods.

“I’m a student. My parents and I moved to Leningrad so I could get a better education in the Soviet Union,”

 

This seems to catch his attention, as if the guard isn’t holding his student documents in his hands. His eyes brighten, and his eyebrows raise, as if he’s genuinely interested. He’s not the most terrible of an actor Emil’s met in his lifetime, an observation that makes him all the more uncomfortable.

“Oh, really? How interesting- tell me, what are you studying?”

“Mechanical engineering, sir,” he answers, hesitantly.

“What a coincidence! My younger brother is also studying engineering, in Moscow. He’s always wanted to work with cars. Do you do a lot of work with cars, comrade?”

“Sometimes,” he shrugs, playing nervously with the cuff of his coat sleeve. The frozen faces on the record sleeves laugh at him. “But I’m planning on specialising in space travel,”

“Ah! It would seem as though we have the next Yuri Gagarin with us here today, my friends,” he moves around the room as he speaks, circling Emil. It feels as though the walls are beginning to pull tighter in around him.

“And it’s just you and your parents living in Leningrad, is it? No family, no friends,”

“We share an apartment with another family, just them and us. I don’t have any siblings, and most of my extended family died during the war,” he stutters. It’s his first lie of the evening.

 

His sisters, all four of them, are most likely at home, safe and somewhat warm, trying to scrape together something for dinner. Except the eldest, Marketa, who works in the local shop and will bring home whatever morsels they haven’t sold at the end of the day, if she can get her hands on them. They’ll all be eagerly awaiting her arrival home- especially Kristyna, with little Diana, who’ll no doubt have been complaining of both hunger and boredom since returning home from school. How he wishes he was still in their position.

 

“So what were you doing back in Czechoslovakia then? It’s only January, the school year isn’t over yet,”

“I have a Great Aunt in Ostrava. She’s old, can’t look after herself, especially not in winter. We go back to visit her every year while her nurse is away on a break,”

“So you do have family then?”

“Just her, no one else. And she’s never been to Russia,” Emil confirms, as if it even matters.

“Are these records from her, then? A little gift, perhaps?”

Emil nods, wide-eyed and almost thankful for being handed a better excuse than one he could have come up with. He wants to kick himself for not coming up with a backstory before now.

“Then why are there four copies of each album?”

 

The guard stops, once again finding himself leaning on the opposite chair, close enough that the horrid scent of his breath hangs in the air under Emil’s nose. Emil’s heart stops, and speeds up at the same time.

“She’s old, she’s not really right in the head. She must have gotten confused,” his voice shakes vigorously in his head, and he can only hope that the guards take no notice. He should be so lucky.

“And you didn’t realise this before now? That they were mostly the same?”

“We were busy looking after her, she caught a sickness, as did I. We didn’t get a chance to look through them before we needed to leave,”

Emil can’t bear to look up at the man- he knows that the guard knows that he’s struck gold. Maybe he’ll get a pat on the back from his boss. Perhaps it’ll put him closer to the promotion he’s been chasing for the last few weeks.

 

“Look in to my eyes and tell me that you were not knowingly planning on smuggling this music in to the Soviet Union with the intention of reproducing or selling it,”

 

There’s a pregnant pause as Emil raises his head, slow and stiff like it’s the first time he’s ever used the muscles in his neck. He catches the guard’s gaze just inches away from his own face, challenging and taunting with contempt and amusement.

 

“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir,”

 

The guard pulls back up, standing over him with an almost satisfied grin. Emil can feel the men behind him relax somewhat, but his own spine remains rigid as he stares blankly head and twists his fingers in his lap.

 

“Well, I’m not sure about this Great Aunt of yours in Ostrava, but you’re a smart enough boy, Emil Nekola- mechanical engineering and rocket ships and such,”

Emil raises a cautious eyebrow, unsure of the way their little ‘conversation’ is heading, or how to respond.

“I’m sure you know that this is the sort of thing we can’t be allowing in to the Union. It’s dangerous, a threat to our society. We don’t need the dregs of American culture tearing down the way of life our comrades worked so hard to build for us, now do we?”

In an ideal world, the guard doesn’t truly believe half of the things he’s been told to spout. Maybe he’s even aware that there’s been a much higher demand for British music than American over the past few months. Emil imagines he earns a pretty penny, plenty enough to build his own little collection of western treasures- far more than the Komsomol kids he usually deals with.

“No sir,”

“Now, I suggest you leave these here with me, and I’ll make sure they’re disposed of correctly, and don’t fall in to dangerous hands. Then, when you get back to Leningrad, you and your student friends can listen to some real Soviet music, something with a good message. And when you next visit this Great Aunt, you can show it to her,”

“Yes sir,”

 

“And pick up a copy of Marx’s writings while you’re at it. I’m not sure what your impeccable education has failed to teach you, but it might do you some good,”

The guard reaches in to the left breast pocket of his uniform jacket, and pulls out a small leather bound book decorated with a crudely gilded cross.

“They obviously neglected to teach you that these fairy tales have no benefit for anyone. They only put misguided ideas in to the brains of the easily manipulated- and we can’t be having that,”

Emil nods.

“I better not see you here again, comrade- _ever,”_

 

He pushes the pile of identification papers back towards the young Czech man, and strolls around the table to open the door in an unprecedented display of consideration.

“You won’t sir,” Emil can’t hide his relief as he slides out from under the table, and shoves the documents in to his pocket before anyone takes the chance to scrutinise them again.

“Wait-“ he protests, as a commanding hand pushes against his shoulder blade to lead him out of the room.

None of the guards looked particularly pleased to be holed up in there for even a second longer.

“Where are my parents?” he asks, sounding embarrassingly like a lost child.

“Did they have anything to do with this?”

He shakes his head.

“Then I’m sure they’ll be waiting to continue their journey to Russia in the reception room. How very inconsiderate of you to lengthen their trip, it’s getting late and I’m sure they’re tired-“ the guard pauses for a second to glare in to Emil’s dilated eyes-

“Turn left at the end of the corridor,”

 

His feet can’t move fast enough. The door slams shut behind him once more, and words can’t begin to describe how thankful he is to be on the other side of it.

He’s sure he can hear a sinister, beguiling laugh behind him.

 

* * *

 

 

Three women stand before him- two blondes and a brunette, each just as slight as the other and each dressed in a more ostentatiously coloured dress than the one before her. All three of them, standing at a head below his own height at the very least, look up at him with the same expression; bright blue eyes glare up at him with their pupils blown wide in awe; their lips hanging apart in a soft ‘oh’ shape as they wait for the story to go on with baited breaths. None of them dare to say an interrupting word, until one does- and they all do.

“ _Wow,_ really?”

“You’re _so_ brave,”

“Were your parents alright?”

“Are _you_ alright?”

They all seem to move closer in towards him as they clamour over each other to speak- it’s not a familiar or common occurrence in his life, but it’s hardly an unwelcome one. A delicately manicured hand wraps around his arm, and he stumbles backwards.

“Relax, ladies, I am perfectly fine and completely unharmed- see? Not a scratch on me. And my parents are both well too, though all the better for your asking, I’m sure,”

 

He tilts his head to the side ever so slightly, and twitches the corner of his lips up further towards his ear than he usually would, as he cocks his hip to the right exactly as he’s seen Christophe do time and time again. Somehow, without the French lilt or thick, dark eyelashes, it doesn’t have quite the same effect. Nonetheless, his efforts are still rewarded with three individual yet heavenly harmonious swoons and he just about manages to keep his knees locked straight up, and to avoid falling to the ground.

“And did they let you keep the records?”

“Unfortunately not,” he sighs, “there were some absolute beauties in there too, it’s a damn shame. But I’m sure we’ll manage to get them replaced soon enough- and when we do, I’ll make sure you’re all the first to know,”

His wink is stilted and awkward, and he wishes he hadn’t done it even before his eyelids come close to brushing together, but by some miracle, some act of God, he still manages to draw a round of blush-graced giggles- which he chooses to imagine are coming from a place somewhere between infatuation and embarrassment, rather than malicious amusement.

“Can I get any of you a drink, perhaps?”

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone come up with such absolute _shit_ in my entire life, Emil,”

A thunderous voice calls out from behind him, though it’s barely audible over the music filling the small room. His necks turns so fast that it cracks with the sudden shock, as his heels struggle to keep up. Mila glares at him with her arms crossed tightly across her chest, her hips slanted in a way that seems to come much more naturally to her than it ever could to Emil, and a hideously self-important look plastered across her face. She leans her back against a cold stone wall, and tilts her chin up as she looks him up and down with a haughty glare.

“Run along now,” she huffs, jerking her head towards the opposite side of the room, as she stares the girls down with an even more intense look. Emil watches them quake in their shoes for just a second- and for that, he can hardly blame them- as they perfect their sneers and flounce off like a flock of cygnets.

 

“Can I help you with something?” he sulks, his attempt at a friendly if somewhat suggestive smile now long gone as he furrows his eyebrows.

“No, I don’t think so. But I do expect a thank you for what I just did,”

“What you just did? You made me look like an idiot,”

“Perhaps- but you’ll look even more of an idiot leading all them on. Besides, you don’t want to be hanging around that type of girl anyway. I did you a favour,”

“If you say so,”

 

“I must say though, you’re quite the storyteller. How long did it take you to come up with that one?” she chuckles as she sidles closer to him, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“It’s not a story, it really happened,” he protests, jovially shoving her back off.

“So it’s not just some elaborate excuse then? Viktor told me that you left the suitcase back in Czechoslovakia by accident,”

“Viktor says a lot of things,”

“So do you, evidently,”

 

He turns away from her, and scans the room for the three women. It’s a small enough room, and they’re dressed in conspicuous enough coloured clothes that he should find them instantly- no doubt now attempting to hang off the arms of Christophe, Jean-Jacques- Viktor at a push, if he’s had enough to drink; maybe even little Yura. There’s a distinct possibility that Mila had in fact been right about them, though he’s loath to admit it. But oddly enough, they are nowhere to be found. Though as predicted, Christophe does so happen to have two far more elegant women crowding around him, all of them stood around the record player that is single handedly fuelling their sorry excuse for a party. He doesn’t know the name of the band currently being broadcast into the room- he probably should.

Viktor stands beside them, with a glass of something in one hand, the other wrapped around Yuuri’s waist as he breaks in to an animated but quiet laugh. Yuuri looks at the women, to the record player, at his shoes, his eyes constantly flitting about as he stands out of place at the edge of the conversation- he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. Jean-Jacques and his beau, on the other hand, are nowhere within Emil’s line of sight. Neither are the twins, Sara and Michele, but unlike poor Yuuri, the four of them have a somewhat reasonable excuse. After all, Sunday morning is quickly approaching, much to Emil’s disdain.

 

“Is Yuri not here?” he asks Mila.

Though his head of blond may be difficult to discern amongst the crowd of similarly coloured men and women alike, Yuri Plisetsky is not the type to let his presence in a room go unnoticed. In addition, it is not usual for him and Mila to not be attached at the hip.

She huffs in amusement.

“He’s stuck under lock and key at Lilia’s. Kicked up quite the fuss about it too, I hear,”

“What’s he done now?”

“Oh, nothing really. But I don’t think Lilia realised that this is where he’s been coming every weekend, rather than going to extra classes,”

“Impressive- that’s not like her,”

 

Mila’s about to nod and agree with a chuckle, but the door bursts open with a crash of wood against stone wall, the crackle of paint chips falling to the concrete floor, and an authoritative bellow, before she even has the chance to tip her chin down.

 

The idle chatter of the room falls silent in an instant, though the music plays on, now deafeningly loud with nothing to drown it out. No one dares move even a single muscle from where they stand, many of them not even turning their heads to assess the intrusion. Fortunately or not for Emil, he happens to be in the perfect position to see a dozen men and women not far from them in age file in to the room, all immaculately groomed and smartly dressed, with their little red neckties tied in uniform knots.

_‘Do they never take those things off’_ , Emil thinks.

 

“Now- I don’t suppose I even need to ask what’s going on here,” one of them says, with a smug voice and an even smugger gaze.

He stands with his feet kicked shoulder width apart, in what Emil can only assume is an attempt to make him seem more commanding, at the front of the group’s military-like ‘V’ formation. Or rather, goose like- it’s certainly a more accurate comparison. His jaw is set tight and wide, eyebrows raised in a practiced taunt, and his eyes are bright with the anticipation of a reaction. Emil thinks he recognises him, vaguely- though it may just be that he recognises that expression. Because he does _certainly_ recognise the expression.

He glances over to Viktor- he was quick to remove his arm from its rest above Yuuri’s hips upon realising that their gathering was compromised, and along with Christophe, has stepped forward to identify himself as the one worth speaking to with his hands held up in a mockery of surrender. His face is a picture of calm- eyes blank, with a charming smile. He’s done this before, most often with Christophe stood loyally at his side, as he does now, with the same grin.

Emil doesn’t miss the way Viktor reaches behind him to push Yuuri further behind his back, hiding his stricken face from the crowd.

 

“I really don’t think there’s much point in this, my friend,” Viktor’s voice is inconceivably smooth given the situation. Emil’s almost jealous, though of course, it is a talent that Viktor has had much more time and opportunity to perfect.

“I’m tired of all this pageantry, I’m sure you all are too. It’s getting rather late, and I’m sure you’ve got a busy day planned for tomorrow. Why don’t we make this easier, for everyone- we’ll all go home, and you can too, and we forget that any of this ever happened,”

He seemed to be doing rather well until those last few words.

 

The intruder downright cackles as he sneers.

“I don’t think so,”

 

Unbeknownst to him, and the rest of his cronies, Viktor would never hold such an event in a place with only one entrance and exit- he’s been caught in that trap before. There’s another set of doors, two side by side, hidden behind a faded bedsheet that doesn’t look particularly out of place in their hijacked garage building. It’s not the most glamorous of digs, but it certainly serves a purpose.

And so, as quickly as their party had been shut down, and before the group with the red scarves can truly realise what is happening, those doors are blown open, and their little gang of fugitives spill out in to the cold air, each clamouring and pouring over each other to get as far away as possible from the rundown brick building before the chase begins.

Their semi-panicked shrieks may draw some attention from the surrounding apartments, but at least they cover the sound of the record now playing out into the streets. With any luck, it’ll play through to the end before someone realises it’s there. They may have to have left behind several hundred rubles worth of valuable vinyl behind in the garage, and when they take into account those abandoned in that stark border office between Poland and Belarus, it’s certainly not going to be the most lucrative of months- but nowadays, that amount is unlikely to leave as big of a dent as he still imagines it will.

 

It seems to snow earlier and earlier in Leningrad each year that Emil has called the city something akin to home, and this winter is certainly no different, as he soon comes to realise as his feet are plunged into a thick, cold blanket of white. He doesn’t think he’s ever regretted something as much as he regrets his choice of outerwear for the evening, his threadbare cigarette smoke stained woollen jacket doing little to protect him from the wind. Though, it isn’t as if he could have planned it any better. The day’s weather had been kind, relatively warm and decently sunny despite the approaching winter, and even in the dark as Emil had snuck in through the garage doors, it had been pleasantly balmy. He finds himself wishing that he had more time to sit and contemplate the weather.

He’s lost sight of Mila and Viktor and anyone else he had stood huddled shoulder to shoulder with only minutes ago, and in doing so, he’s also lost any trace of his pursuers. Nevertheless, he continues to run to the best of his ability through the snow, and reaches home to find his forehead wet with exhaustion, and his chest rattling. He can’t seem to catch his breath back on his ascent up the stairs, and struggles to keep his hands from trembling as he pulls the door shut behind him with barely a click, in a desperate attempt not to drag his neighbours from their beds and arouse even more suspicion.


	2. Otabek

Upon stepping off the creaking wooden floor of the train carriage; minding the concerningly wide gap between it and the platform with an only slightly misjudged step (and nearly tripping over it in the process); and hearing the harsh slap of a new leather sole, not quite yet molded to the contours of his feet, against cracked, weathered stone, Otabek Altin comes to realise two things.

One: The air in Leningrad carries far more of a chill in and amongst it than the air in his home town. In a sudden breeze, his calloused fingers, devoid of any protection from the weather, clench so tightly around the handle of his suitcase, that it begins to feel as though the unfamiliar weight of its contents- along with the aid of gravity- will fall to the ground, and pull each one of his fingertips clean off along with it.

His coat rests heavy on his back as he attempts to fold its thick collar up around his neck and ears with his free hand. He’s never felt more thankful for the existence of thick, hand-knitted woollen socks in his life. Later, he’ll likely find himself researching a simple remedy- or at the very least, something akin to a remedy- for his stinging, cracked lips, poor dry skin and chilblained feet. Otabek isn’t uneducated by any means, and he has been cold before in his life, so he’d long since known that the temperature in the Northerly city would take a relatively significant amount of time to acclimatise to, and he was not entirely unprepared to deal with that; but for it to be so offensively cold still during what should be the final throes of the autumn months- it does come as something of a shock.

And two: The train station platform is almost silent. Yes, there are other people milling about, though their collective volume can hardly compare to the situation on the train itself, where Otabek had very much felt like the smallest cow being herded from one pasture to another, more cramped pasture.

 

(The smallest cow, he reassures himself, is likely to be the last one that they eat- though he’s entirely unsure of where that particular thought process had emerged from. It doesn’t concern him too much.)

 

And of course, there is that ever present dull hum of foot traffic and mundane, hushed conversations. If anything, in actuality, this platform may be louder than the one he’d boarded from over three thousand miles away. But at the same time, nothing stands out enough to drag his attention away from the scuffed toes of his brand new shoes, or the smashed and yellowed glass canopy that throws the pathway under an interestingly shaped shadow, and traps a swirling cloud of cigarette smoke securely under it- and it lingers, perhaps due to the accompanying wind that twists under it, directly over the designated non-smoking seating area. How unfortunate.

There’s no line of desperate travellers at the ticket booth vying for the cheapest tickets on the first train away from the place, and the crowd of teenagers waiting anxiously at the newsagent’s counter for the attendant to make absolute sure that she doesn’t have any remaining copies of this month’s Pravda left on a shelf somewhere in the back despite the station’s inevitable price mark up, is noticeably absent. It’s not Leningrad central, but they’re not far from it, and the lack of any noticeable goings on in the area has set him even further on the edge than he had already been- almost over it.

Though, it could always just be that the cold has begun to get to his head, even after only minutes. It’s certainly already gotten to the tip of his nose.

 

For a boy that had once been called intrusively observant by all of his aunties, some of his cousins, and his second eldest sister- in circumstances that were not created by his influence alone- and for someone that had considered that label to be one of the greatest compliments that anyone could hope to receive for more than a year (maybe three. Maybe more), the fact that he has been presented with such a wide, unfamiliar canvas, and with that, he had only managed to have those two instances occur to him; well, it’s a rather poor showing, if nothing else, and he can’t say that he’s not ever so slightly disappointed with himself.

But it won’t do him any good to dwell on it, and neither will it be of any use to him to settle and study his surroundings with a closer eye, so he doesn’t waste much more time doing so. Instead, he subtly checks that he is in fact still holding his suitcase- though the burgeoning ache in his forearm would indicate that he is- and that he is indeed still in possession of all ten of his fingers. For a fleeting moment, he can only count nine, and he comes extraordinarily close to his version of a panic. That is, before he realises that the cold is definitely getting to his head, and that all ten red, white and brown mottled digits are clearly there.

He tucks his free hand in to the depths of his pocket as he heads out in the direction of the street outside, peeling through the thick stack of papers buried there, and checking each one off a mental list. Much like his fingers, if not more importantly, they’re all present and accounted for. Which is a relief, because nothing in this world seems to ever go to plan for him, and there had been a rather haunting moment back on the border line in which he had misplaced perhaps the most important document in his arsenal.

In his most humble of opinions, and he is truly the humble sort, it is not difficult to discern at least the vague origin of his ethnicity, and therefore his citizenship, simply by taking a second to look at his face- no matter how worldly and well-travelled the border guard may or may not have been. Though naturally, he has been made painfully aware on more than one occasion of how little sway his lawful, birth rite citizenship holds anywhere northwest of his home country (or anywhere else, for that matter) especially in comparison to his god given features; primarily, from the bitter words spoken by his family and acquaintances, rather than his own experiences. And while he has no desire to contemplate the complexities of the situation surrounding his ethnicity and citizenship, as those around him often seem to, it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise to him how little time the issue had taken to crop up on his travels.

 

That thought- as they often are- is soon replaced by another: the streets of the outskirts of Leningrad are far cooler than the train platforms, and it only heightens the overwhelming feeling of anxiousness as he wanders the aforementioned streets with no map to guide him,, only faded signs at strange intervals, as though the majority of them had been torn up from the ground and carted elsewhere by ballsy thieves looking to sell them as scrap metal.

It had taken Otabek less than an hour to decode the last letter he had received from the city- hardly a record, but still an achievement, given that his mystery contact had once again altered the code they had been working from over the previous several weeks, therefore bringing the total up to four and a half different codes in as many months, spread over eleven letters, and one that he never received, which had seemingly disappeared at some point after being sent out of Russia. The anonymous man’s efforts were impressive, apparently so impressive that Otabek had not been in the slightest bit concerned regarding the correspondence’s need for secrecy. Even now, that implication has not entirely occurred to him.

The address that he had been given in the last message- assuming that he had managed to translate it correctly, and his abilities to plan a route on a map had not dwindle considerably within a short amount of time- is on the other side of the city from where he had been sending his previous letters to. Unlike the code, the words written on the front of each envelope had not changed once in that time. Now that- of nothing else- does ring alarm bells in his mind, albeit relatively quiet ones. He’d certainly felt somewhat shifty every time he had travelled to the nearest post office to send the letters off, and he imagines that the sudden and often influx of letters from a small Kazakh farm to a neighbourhood in Leningrad had drawn some suspicion from the sorting centre on the other end of the trail, whether that neighbourhood is or isn’t particularly well to do- he doesn’t know. Contrary to some of the other details exchanged between the pair, the legitimacy of the two addresses had been significantly difficult to research- especially whilst trying to keep the process such a closely guarded secret.

 

The first bench that he has seen since leaving the train station soon appears before him like the mirage of an oasis at the height of a sandstorm summer- simple pleasures. He sets the case down with great care, leaning the cracked leather against the back panels as it threatens to topple over in the wind. One of the panels is missing, the others rotten and splintered with age. But it just about manages to remain standing. As does he, untrusting of the bench’s structural integrity to hold his weight, no matter how strong the ache of his chilblained feet.

He pulls the letter from his pocket, now beginning to tear after being folded and unfolded one too many times, dirtied under graphite fingerprints and hurried notes he can just about decipher despite having written them himself not that long ago. The elegant, looping purple ink handwriting stands out vividly in its nonsensicality, putting his own blocky scratch to shame.

 

_“Don’t worry about finding us-“ it reads, “Once you’re on the right street, you’ll know exactly which building it is,”_

 

The street itself looks like every other street he’s walked along in however long it is that he’s spent walking. The road is wide, and lined with piles of snow just as grey as the tarmac surfacing. When the light catches it just right, he can see the odd patch of deceptively sheer black ice. It seems devoid of any traffic in its expanse, though the amount of cars he can see in that moment is far more than he would see over the course of the day in his home village- perhaps even in the city centres. The streets run alongside concrete-clad building after concrete-clad building, their windows all discoloured and fogged from the condensation on the inside. Other than the passing cars, this is the only sign of life that he can see, and somewhat like the train platform, the atmosphere is uncomfortably still. Even the rats and the pigeons have chosen to wait this day out in the warmth of some cracked-open hovel.

However, it soon becomes clear to him that _‘The Leader of the Pack’_ , as the sender of the letters has rather vainly made himself known to Otabek, was not necessarily being purposefully vague, obtuse or misleading with his statement, as the Kazakh comes to a stop beside a building that seems so out of place in the area around it, that it’s almost alien. He takes this to be a good sign.

It doesn’t even come close to towering over the surrounding tenement stacks, though its apparent grandeur and conspicuousness more than make up for that fact. Its edges are sleek and curved, the masonry deliberate and expert. The wooden cladding that surrounds the bottom half of the building has been painted a brilliant claret red, and recently by the look of it, for there is not a single peel nor chip in sight. Flags that look just as fresh and pristine hang from each window of which there are several on the façade alone. His lips stumble around the gilded words positioned above the grand entryway.

 

**_South Bank Skating Club_ **

 

He’s not entirely sure what he was expecting to find, even though he’s spent a fair while agonising over the thought, but an ice rink had been so far down on his mental list that it hadn’t actually crossed his mind as being a possibility at all- a cramped apartment, definitely, maybe even a disused office building, if such a thing existed. Not an ice rink. But he’s bought a return ticket for tomorrow morning for this exact situation, and it’s no skin off his teeth if he acquiesces on using it. And if it transpires that he has managed to find the right place, then he will stay, and the outcome of that will be worth that extra bit of money he loses, though it might take him some time to get over the annoyance of having spent so long saving- the idea of trotting off to St Petersburg was hardly one that came about on a whim upon receiving the letter currently clasped in his palm.

And really, there’s no indication that he’s in the wrong place at all. He’s certainly stood on the right street, or at least the battered sign would suggest so. Unlike the streetlamps, that is still unmoved, but still rusted and decaying, unlike the commanding, heavy-browed statue that stands opposite it, in the courtyard that presents itself before the skating club. The anonymous man, the so-called _‘Leader of the Pack’_ , can’t possibly have been so cruelly ambiguous to have meant any one of the identical buildings that encircle him. Thus, he picks up his bag, rolls his shoulders as though he’s preparing for a walk far more daunting than the ten metres it will take to reach the door, and makes his way over.

His feet fit perfectly in the grooves worn down in to the stone staircase by decades of use, little girls dreaming of sparkling dresses, and men far taller and far muscular than he both walking the same path. It is not a new building, despite what its face might suggest. Grit crackles underneath him as it is ground into the stone. The door is not wide open, but neither is it locked- it has been propped open with a cinder block sandwiched between each heavy wooden slab, but not so heavy that they don’t crash against the obstacle every time the wind catches them. The opening times sign to the side of the door frame suggests that this is simply an attempt to keep the draft out at the behest of the poor receptionist whilst still remaining inviting enough to the general public so that the owners may at least recuperate the day’s running costs. He wraps a hand around the door not held in place by the concrete block, careful not to drop the paper that also resides there, and pulls it open- stepping in to the lobby, and letting it slam shut behind him with the slightest hint of regret.

 

_“Ask for ‘Elenore’ at the front desk, when you get there. She’ll let you know where to go. I’m sure you understand our need to be cautious,”_

 

He can’t remember having seen the snow falling outside, but there’s certainly plenty enough resting on the woollen shoulders of his coat for him to shake off on to the carpet, already sodden and marked by the day’s foot traffic. He stamps his boots on the doormat, ridding them of any similar substances, before walking to the desk. Even lost on the freeing streets of an unfamiliar city, his heart had not been beating nearly so fast his stomach feeling nearly as sick, as they do in those seven steps. They echo throughout the room, even with the carpet to soften the blow. He can hear idle chatter from somewhere else in the building, excited yelps and the odd painful exclamation too- close by, but not close enough. There are only two souls in the entryway.

The other, a woman sat with her head bowed low, and her face obscured by the height of the desk. He can see the top of her head, hair dyed a vibrant red with the natural dark brown beginning to peek through at the roots; meticulously curled at one point, though now messy and somewhat limp as the hours since have passed, and the tally of times she’s run her hands through her locks absentmindedly has gone up. She’s wrapped herself in a thick knitted cardigan, and seems to shiver much more violently than Otabek feels that he is doing, even with the radiators on and rattling, and with her not being in the direct line of draught from the door. He still wants to shut it for her, in a gentlemanly way, but is loath to overstep the mark within seconds of his arrival. He’s not even sure that the girl has realised he’s there- her head hasn’t moved an inch, and the rhythm of the tap of her perfectly manicured nails doesn’t seem to miss a beat. It’s as though she’s tapping along to a song on the radio, but there is no music playing that he can hear.

 

He clears his throat- the girl looks up.

“I’m here to see Elenore,”

And he immediately cringes, finding himself to be too formal, yet at the same time, far too familiar. He hopes his embarrassment doesn’t show on his face. The name is foreign on his tongue, and he’s not sure that he is pronouncing it right, until her eyes light up, and a beaming smile, made almost menacing by the red of her lipstick and the concentrated black of her eyeliner, spreads across her face. She raises a little from the chair, arching her back inwards and holding herself up on the lower shelf of the desk, pushing piles of wrinkled paper out of the way as she does so.

“Then you’re lucky I’m working the front desk today- I’m Elenore,”

 

It seems just as uncomfortable between her lips as it does his, but she pulls it off with much more finesse, before swinging around to open the door behind her, which, in his anxiety, Otabek had failed to notice.

“Follow me, I’ll show you where you need to go. We’ve been expecting you,”

Her bright voice and welcoming attitude does nothing to quell the feeling of his heart beating through the walls of his chest- if anything, the feeling only amplifies with each word she says.

 

The staircase, much lie the lobby, is carpeted in that sickly blue-grey colour most buildings lucky enough to have carpet have been blessed with. However unlike the lobby this one is dirtied and torn and stained. Otabek has to wonder exactly how long it has been there, and if it has not been long lie he assumes, how it has become so decrepit in such a short space of time. There are no windows in the stairwell, only strip lights on the landing above, which cast clumsy shadows down the stairs themselves. The walls feel close to his shoulders despite the passage being, at the very least, wide enough to accommodate a two-berth staircase as well as a rather ominous looking door to the left of it, a door he had not initially noticed upon his ascent, and one he’s not entirely sure his brain hasn’t conjured as a pseudo escape route.

Another door at the top, this one definitely tangible, opens the stairwell in to another, much wider hallway, lit much more brightly and feeling, comfortingly, significantly more open. The two of them carry on to the end of the corridor, one pair of footsteps sounding infinitely more confident than the other, before pulling to a stop at yet another door. Although the outside of the building was definitely grand, the network of doors and corridors he finds inside seems far too vast for what the space should reasonably allow.

She knocks once, only lightly. Otabek can’t imagine if that there are people on the other side of the door, they can hear it particularly well, if even not at all. Green chips of paint flake off at the touch, and trails of exposed wood seem to suggest a recent issue with damp in that corner. There’s no sign or plaque to offer any suggestion of what the room could be used for, and no chicken wired window to see in through. It creaks open before anyone can respond to the knock, ‘Elenore’ swinging it open forwards excitedly, and bounding through as music begins to spill out in to the corridor. Without even crossing the threshold, and while the now opened door still blocks his view in to the room, Otabek can hear a chaotic panic set in within seconds.

 

Bodies- several of them- scramble up from their seats. The music rips off, scratching the disc in a way that makes him cringe. Heavy equipment is being shuffled around, he can hear the clatters of metal and plastic, and someone tripping over a wire. The light which trails out with the music goes dark. There’s noise, but Otabek can’t discern any particular words being said- though he can feel the intent behind them rather strongly. The door moves to close, before it stops suddenly in place as if there was never any weight behind it. Then, the words he is able to recognise, begin.

“ _For Christ’s sake_ , Mila, what did we say about knocking?” someone says in Russian far more strongly accented than Otabek’s own, less scared in tone than it was exasperated, as though this situation is all too usual to him.

“I did knock, you just weren’t listening. _Besides_ , knocking or not, if I was the KGB you’d be fucked anyway- this room doesn’t have an escape route,” the woman, Elenore- or Mila, as he was sure the other man had said- puts on a defiant voice.

“A warning would still be nice, I’d like to not have to unplug everything every time that door opens,” a third voice, one that had clearly been taken aback by the sudden intrusion, and presumably, the one Otabek had heard trip over a cable and in to some variation of a shelf.

“I don’t know why you’d _bother_ , it won’t make you look any less guilty,”

 

He knows these voices- more vaguely than he would care to admit, and not in the quality that comes with them being only feet away from him, but he does know them. The name ‘Elenore’ no longer feels sickeningly foreign to him. These are the voices he’s spent every evening and most middays listening to for more weeks than he can count, yet not nearly long enough. And at this realisation, he breathes a great sigh of relief- he is exactly where he had intended to be. It’s just that the headquarters of famed pirate radio station ‘Radio Riot’, are hardly what he expected them to be.

After all, they’re little more than a small, grey office, illuminated by a window too small for the already stingy space. There’s a collection of desks situated in the middle, and an assortment of chairs gathered around them. Knotted cables trail across the floor, with no indication of where they have come from, or where they are going. But the strongest indication, are the tall shelves that line the walls, each stacked full of cardboard record sleeves. Any space not covered by these shelves is decorated by an ample amount of posters and photographs, of musicians he both does and does not recognise, which do succeed in making the room seem just a little less dreary.

 

“And you probably shouldn’t call me Mila, we have a visitor,”

At that, she pulls the door open once more to reveal Otabek stood awkwardly, shoulders raised to his ears and his arms hanging limply to his sides, as he still hangs on to the handle of the bag as though his life depends on it. And for the first time, he can finally put faces to the voices. The two men, both taller than him, and distinctly European looking. One with straight hair, the other curly; both blond, to some degree; both looking like they had forgotten to shave that morning. A look of something akin to horror crosses over their gazes, before the one stood on the left, with the curly hair and the glasses, seems to begin to smirk.

 

“You’re the Kazakh Viktor has been writing to?”

He nods tentatively.

“I suppose- he never told me his real name though,”

“Is he trying the _‘Leader of the Pack_ ' thing again?”

This time, Otabek nods more confidently, relaxed by the man’s amused huff.

 

“I’m Gainsberre when we’re broadcasting, but please just call me Christophe. This is Emil and Mila,” he smiles, gesturing to the two people stood beside him before reaching over to shake Otabek’s hand.

The other man, Emil, looks slightly less terrified, but infinitely more confused as Christophe welcomes the newcomer without dwelling much more on why there happens to be a relative stranger stood in the sanctuary of their office.

“I must apologise that Viktor isn’t here to welcome you, we weren’t sure when you would arrive- or if you’d come at all. I’m sure he won’t be long, feel free to take a seat while we set everything back up,”

“Can I get you a drink?” Elenore- _Mila_ \- asks.

 

Otabek shakes his head in a polite decline, shrugs the coat off his shoulders and hangs it over the back of the nearest chair. He sets the case down under a desk, and watches Christophe, Emil and Mila set up a rather complex system of machinery with such speed and accuracy that he has to assume it is not the first time they’ve done it this week, or even today.

Then, as if his ears were burning upon Christophe having said his name, a new figure appears in the doorway only minutes later. His cheeks are red and his hair is dishevelled, though in a way that doesn’t make him appear to be any less handsome, or put together. He doesn’t seem to notice Otabek stood beside a chair, still too uncomfortable to sit having just met the group- he’s too focused on what he’s saying, which must be of some importance considering he had begun to shout down the corridor before Otabek even heard one of the other doors shut.

 

“Is everything alright? You stopped broadcasting, did something happen?” the concern in his words is not even traceable in his voice.

“It’s fine, Mila has just forgotten how knocking works again- your new apprentice is here, by the way,”

With the reassurance that nothing has gone wrong, Viktor’s expression hardly seems to change; but he smooths down his hair and breaks in to a smile as Otabek stands to greet him properly.

“Of course- we’ve been anxiously awaiting your arrival, it’s good to finally have you here. I’m Viktor,”

His hands are warm- like he’s spent the last hour sat in the boiler room rather than wandering the streets as Otabek had been doing- and his eyes are almost inhumanly bright blue. His shirt has been meticulously ironed, his shoes brilliantly shined, and within only seconds, there is now not a single hair out of place on his head.

 

Otabek hadn’t thought too much about what he expected the owner of the largest collection of banned music this side of the Soviet Union to look like. The man stood before him- he wasn’t it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As far as I'm aware, 'South Bank Skating Club' is not a real place. Call it, artistic liberty.

**Author's Note:**

> s/o to lazuritecrown on tumblr for reminding me that this existed somewhere in the deepest, darkest depths of my laptop.


End file.
